1.
Small town in the East of Poland.
2.
Expressionistic poem by Georg Trakl, named after the town mentioned above. Trakl, being a simple paramedic in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I had to attend to 90 seriously injured soldiers - without medical help or drugs - in a barn in the battle of Grodek from September 8th - 11th 1914. In this barn he witnessed several suicides of wounded soldiers until he himself finally tried to take his life. After this incident Trakl was brought to the military hospital of Kraków, Southern Poland, where he wrote the poem and committed suicide trough an overdose of cocaine on November 3, 1914.
Grodek
Am Abend tönen die herbstlichen Wälder
Von tödlichen Waffen, die goldnen Ebenen
Und blauen Seen, darüber die Sonne
Düstrer hinrollt; umfängt die Nacht
Sterbende Krieger, die wilde Klage
Ihrer zerbrochenen Münder.
Doch stille sammelt im Weidengrund
Rotes Gewölk, darin ein zürnender Gott wohnt
Das vergoßne Blut sich, mondne Kühle;
Alle Straßen münden in schwarze Verwesung.
Unter goldnem Gezweig der Nacht und Sternen
Es schwankt der Schwester Schatten durch den schweigenden Hain,
Zu grüßen die Geister der Helden, die blutenden Häupter;
Und leise tönen im Rohr die dunklen Flöten des Herbstes.
O stolzere Trauer! ihr ehernen Altäre
Die heiße Flamme des Geistes nährt heute ein gewaltiger Schmerz,
Die ungebornen Enkel.
Grodek
In the evening the autumnal forests sound off
Deadly weapons, the golden lowlands
and blue lakes, above the sun
rolls angry; the night surrounds
dieing warriors, the wild lament
of their broken mouths.
Still silence gathers at the bottom of the pasture
Red cloud, wherein an angry god dwells
The spilled blood, moony chill;
All streets disembogue in black decay.
Under golden branch the night and the stars
Falters the sister's shadow through the silent grove,
To greet the spirits of the heroes, the bleeding heads;
And quietly clink in the tubing the dark flutes of autumn.
Oh pride teariness! you brazen altars
Today the hot flame of the ghost nurtures an enormous pain,
The unborn grandchildren.